Yeah they aren't rushing, which is fine. I just hope that they aren't buying up so many properties, spending tens of thousands on each proposal but then not doing anything with them. They've gobbled up a lot of prime real estate downtown (and elsewhere)...like a lot of it. Free market and all that, so that's fine. I'd just wish to see a more diverse range of developers so that one developer isn't owning all this valuable land, but then taking years upon years to do anything with it. More developers = more projects that can happen at the same time.
As for retail...yeah. Food would do okay there. I just feel like all of downtown is food. There's not much downtown Kitchener. I'd love to start seeing other companies take a chance. I actually wrote an article last month in a major Austrian architecture publication that touches on this. Diversity is necessary. Like, have a Zara open and you'd have every 25 and under flocking there to buy shitty fast fashion. The whole first floor of the Young Tower would have been perfect for something like that. Or if Canada Computers relocated somewhere downtown, they could probably do extremely well with all the foot traffic and transit connections. Or I don't know...shoe stores, kitchen supplies, a place to brew beer. Basically, for a lot of things, you still need to go out to suburban areas. Restaurants alone won't create a vibrant downtown, especially with fewer office workers these days and a cost of living so high meaning fewer people are eating out. But it's also in an awkward phase where it's growing, but there isn't enough "proof" for entrepreneurs and business owners that certain things will be a success. There's a lot more risk in opening up, say, an art supply store than there is some restaurant that can sell 49.99 dollar slices of deep dish pizza and IPAs to douchey hipsters so of course the pizza store would be more likely to take the risk. But if you end up with a downtown that is nothing but places to eat and buy weed, then that's a bad downtown.
Oh well, in time, I suppose. Hopefully if this project gets built the commercial space actually gets used. Every new project downtown has been struggling to attract businesses. Some places have been sitting vacant for 10-15+ years now.
As for retail...yeah. Food would do okay there. I just feel like all of downtown is food. There's not much downtown Kitchener. I'd love to start seeing other companies take a chance. I actually wrote an article last month in a major Austrian architecture publication that touches on this. Diversity is necessary. Like, have a Zara open and you'd have every 25 and under flocking there to buy shitty fast fashion. The whole first floor of the Young Tower would have been perfect for something like that. Or if Canada Computers relocated somewhere downtown, they could probably do extremely well with all the foot traffic and transit connections. Or I don't know...shoe stores, kitchen supplies, a place to brew beer. Basically, for a lot of things, you still need to go out to suburban areas. Restaurants alone won't create a vibrant downtown, especially with fewer office workers these days and a cost of living so high meaning fewer people are eating out. But it's also in an awkward phase where it's growing, but there isn't enough "proof" for entrepreneurs and business owners that certain things will be a success. There's a lot more risk in opening up, say, an art supply store than there is some restaurant that can sell 49.99 dollar slices of deep dish pizza and IPAs to douchey hipsters so of course the pizza store would be more likely to take the risk. But if you end up with a downtown that is nothing but places to eat and buy weed, then that's a bad downtown.
Oh well, in time, I suppose. Hopefully if this project gets built the commercial space actually gets used. Every new project downtown has been struggling to attract businesses. Some places have been sitting vacant for 10-15+ years now.